I have been accused of not giving President Donald J. Trump credit when due. I wish to rebut that.
President Trump, on Wednesday night, signed an executive order that will keep any more children from being ripped from their families. He deserves thanks for that. Thousands of children are likely to be saved the terror of being pulled from their parents. Thousands of parents will know their children are safe. That is an excellent humanitarian decision.
The President’s decision to enact a “zero tolerance” policy precipitated the humanitarian crisis; prior to that, the only times children were taken away was when they were being used as props by people such as drug dealers and coyotes who were not, in fact, their parents; or when their parents were incarcerated felons (when a felon is removed from society, that includes their children) or when they were in imminent danger from abusive parents. President Trump changed that when he decided that people who had committed misdemeanors needed to be imprisoned.
Now, at least, the people imprisoned for a misdemeanor aren’t having their children stolen. Thank you, President Trump, for no longer stealing children. That is the credit you are due.
Thank you, also, for demonstrating the hypocrisy of Republicans – I can no longer call them people on “the right”, because they have abandoned the historical association to freedom and equality for all that defined “the right” for most of my life. Many of the same people who screamed, justly, about grabbing Elian Gonzalez and returning him to Cuba in an apparent effort to appease a dictator were perfectly willing to abandon their positions in favor of families for the sake of political expediency. Groups that claimed to be “pro-family” were eerily silent as families were directly and intentionally torn apart. Given the opportunity to choose between supporting families or supporting you, they chose you, Mr. President.
Thank you for demonstrating the hypocrisy of Democrats who cheered Bill Clinton as he condemned your actions, while ignoring Clinton’s direct intervention against Elian Gonzalez’s freedom and his mother’s dying efforts.
Thank you for giving an opportunity to people such as Laura “summer camps” Ingraham, Corey “waaah waah” Lewandowski and Ann “child actors” Coulter to show that they are just as bad as Alex Jones or David Brock has ever been.
Thank you for reminding us of how incredibly petty your entire family is, as your son, who was due to appear at a George P. Bush fundraiser – the George P. Bush who has been a staunch supporter of you despite alienating much of his family by doing so – cancelled that appearance because of his father’s and aunt’s public criticism of your policy. Punishing someone for what the family has done is an action remarkably reminiscent of Kim Jong Un’s “three generations” policy, or your own suggestion of killing the families of terrorists from during the debates. And thank you for reminding us of those abominations as well.
There is, absolutely, a problem at the border. Our asylum process is being overwhelmed by people falsely claiming asylum. There are obvious answers to this that were not enacted under previous Presidents. One would be to severely penalize and actively deport anyone who failed to attend their asylum hearing; most of the actual desperate people, those fleeing murder and destruction in their homelands, attend those hearings. They are typically ignored by those who abused the asylum process and have taken time to “hide” in our society. “Hiding” is very difficult to do in a wired world. They can be found, but the government chooses not to find them because of the political ramifications. Putting resources toward finding and prosecuting false asylum seekers would have greatly reduced the false claims, without traumatizing and incarcerating the innocent. Another solution is to provide more judges and clerks to process asylum applications quickly.
Instead, you chose to attack the innocent in an effort to scare the guilty. That’s why there is still a “zero tolerance” policy still in place. It is why children will continue to be jailed, but at least they’ll be kept with their families while they await prosecution for a crime on the magnitude of jaywalking (and again, I’m thankful for that small concession to basic human rights.) Of course, as of right now, there is no retroactive grandfathering for those who have already been seized from their parents, but perhaps you will see fit to treat the other children as people some day. Until then, we can assume that they’re to be punished for their crime of being brought along with parents who were afraid of seeing them slaughtered. And we can assume that, rather than spend the resources required to give those children back to the parents from the many cities to which you’ve already distributed them, you’d rather keep the families broken because they don’t have the surname Trump. It mirrors the mentality that said we should punish women who have had an abortion. And thank you for reminding us of that aspect of your personality, too.
Mr. President, I know you’re not calling this the Marco Antonio Munoz Order, but I ask that you consider giving that title to your new Executive Order. It would commemorate the life of a Honduran man who died by his own hand in jail. He had fled with his family from the threat of violent drug cartels and had reached America, only to have your new enforcement policy tear his wife and four year old child from him. His effort to reach Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill had resulted in the last remaining things of value in his life being ripped away. In his despondency, he took his own life.
That is the blood on your hands, Mr. President; on your hands, and the hands of all who support you in this policy. I hope you will consider commemorating that with an official name for your order.
